Live: Strike announced in Israel amid mounting anger at Netanyahu

"From the first moments of the Israeli invasion, the electricity  was cut off. We have been without electricity and water for 48 hours," a Jenin resident, who did not want to give their name, told MEE.

"The situation is really, really bad. Food in out refrigerators has gone bad so we are forced to leave Jenin and take shelter with relatives outside the city."

The resident said there was no internet or event the ability to charge phones. "It feels like Gaza's conditions," they added.

The Israeli army blew up a house in Al-Manshiya neighbourhood, inside Nur Shams camp, causing a fire which spread to nearby houses.

Ayman Kanouh, the owner of the house, told MEE that Israeli soldiers were preventing fire crews from reaching the neighbourhood to extinguish the blaze. He said the fire may exacerbate due to the presence of gas pipes in the basement.

Kanouh said there were dozens of cases of smoke inhalation due to the continuous flames. The Israeli army also fired sound bombs at anyone trying to approach the burning house.

“We left the house a few hours before it was stormed, but the houses in the neighbourhood are close together, which led to the fire spreading,” he said.

The affected homes were “inhabited by the elderly and sick”, but Israeli troops were “still preventing us from going there,” Kanouh added.

“Diabetics need medication, and elderly people are suffering from smoke inhalation. Soldiers prevent them from leaving their homes, which are in danger of burning.”

The army imposed a complete siege on Al-Manshiya, preventing the transfer of the body of a Palestinian with special needs killed by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday evening.

The European Union has urged "immediate humanitarian pauses" to allow for a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.

The EU High Representative's Office said it "welcomes the delivery of more than 1.2 million oral polio vaccines as well as the cooperation by Israel in delivering the vaccines to Gaza, and underlines the importance of further cooperation by all sides with WHO, UNRWA and UNICEF to conduct the vaccination rollout".

This comes after the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza confirmed a 10-month-old baby was found to have polio in Deir el-Balah. 

The vaccination campaign aims to target 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip. 

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have reiterated a "call for an immediate ceasefire".

The two leaders met at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Thursday, where they discussed among other things "the need to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East".

Starmer also said the two countries would work together to tackle illegal migration and vowed to "reset" Britain's relationship with the European Union.

Dozens of people have been injured as a result of a fire in al-Manshiyya neighbourhood in the Nur Shams refugee camp.

Five houses have been burning as Israeli forces continue to prevent emergency services from entering the camp to extinguish the fire and carry out evacuations.

According to Al Jazeera, the Israeli army said the fires were caused by explosive devices inside houses.

A fire is spreading through at least 10 homes in the Al-Manashiya neighbourhood of Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm, in the occupied West Bank. 

According to Al Jazeera, the fire began as a result of the Israeli military's attacks on homes in the camp.

Israeli forces are reportedly blocking emergency services from reaching the area.

Israel's foreign minister has been widely condemned after calling for the ejection of Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank during a major Israeli assault launched on Wednesday. 

Israel Katz wrote on X shortly after the raid began: "We need to address the [terror] threat exactly as we deal with terror infrastructure in Gaza, including the temporary evacuation of Palestinian civilians and any other step needed." 

He later wrote that such a "temporary evacuation" would occur "in some cases of intense combat", during which Palestinians would be moved "from one neighbourhood to another within the refugee camp to prevent civilian harm". 

The comments came as Israel launched its largest operation in the West Bank in decades. Drones hit Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas as troops opened fire on Palestinians on the ground. At least 17 Palestinians were killed, according to Wafa news agency. 

"The Israeli major military operation in the occupied West Bank must not constitute the premises of a war extension from Gaza, incl. full-scale destruction," wrote Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, on X. 

READ MORE: Israeli foreign minister's call to eject West Bank's Palestinians condemned

Ireland has backed the EU foreign policy chief's calls to sanction far-right Israeli ministers accused of spreading "hate messages" against Palestinians and disregarding international law.

"We will be supporting Josep Borrell’s recommendation for sanctions in respect of settler organisations in the West Bank who are facilitating [the] expansion of settlements, and also to Israeli ministers," Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin told reporters ahead of a meeting in Brussels.

The proposed sanctions will likely target ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who are known for promoting the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and defending violence against Palestinians.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he received warnings regarding Hamas activity in the Gaza Strip as early as July 2023, when Israel was dealing with internal divisions regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul.

Lapid uses this as evidence that the government must have known of such warnings.

"During the months leading up to the disaster, the prime minister and cabinet ministers received a series of serious, unprecedented warnings. From the middle of 2023 there were more and more voices within the terrorist organizations that said that the moment they had been waiting for had arrived," he said in his testimony, delivered before an independent civilian commission of inquiry into Israel's failures of 7 October.

Lapid says Netanyahu failed to act despite knowning Israel was in danger.

Responding to these statements, Netanyahu's office accused Lapid of lying.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu did not receive any warning about the war in Gaza - not a month before and not even an hour before October 7," the office's statment says. "The opposite is true and the protocols prove it.

"“Lapid, who brought in workers from Gaza and gave free gas to [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah while promising that this would prevent war, is the last one who can preach in matters of security."

Throughout the past 11 months of Israel’s war on Gaza, the Israeli army has killed scores of Palestinian scientists, academics and artists, along with their families.

Many have been targeted in air assaults, often without warning. Some were crushed to death under debris. Israel’s relentless strikes have also killed hundreds of teachers and thousands of students, while decimating Gaza’s university infrastructure. 

Such violence is not new. The Israeli military has a long and bloody history of targeting Palestinian cultural life. 

Last month marked the anniversary of the death of one of the pioneers of Palestinian literature, Ghassan Kanafani, who was killed more than half a century ago by a Mossad-planted car bomb in Beirut.

READ MORE: Israel's killing of Palestinian intellectual leaders is an incalculable loss, opinion by Asem al-Jerjawi

Three Palestinian children, severely injured in Israeli bombing attacks in Gaza, are set to arrive in South Africa this week for life-saving medical treatment.

The US-based Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), which secured the first-ever evacuation of children from Gaza to the country, says Lina, 17, Mira, 9, and Sanad, 1, and accompanying family members will receive medical and psychosocial care throughout their stay.

Since January, PCRF has organised and ensured the evacuation of more than 120 Palestinian children from Gaza to the US and countries in the Middle East and Europe.

“We extend our heartfelt thanks to the South African community for their invaluable support in making this mission possible,” said Tareq Hailat, head of PCRF’s Treatment Abroad Program.

“We are committed to expanding this crucial effort, as many more children in Gaza remain in urgent need of medical attention.”

The Israeli army says that they killed Osama Gadallah, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) intelligence officer, in a drone strike on southern Gaza's Rafah on Wednesday.

The military says that Gadallah served as a commander in the PIJ’s military intelligence unit and took part in the Hamas-led 7 October attack on Israel.

The army claims to have killed dozens of other fighters in the past day.

Gaza's health ministry said that 68 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 40,602 since 7 October.

Additionally, 93,855 people were wounded since the start of the war.

Some relatives of Israeli captives still held in Gaza have broken through the border fence and entered the Palestinian enclave from the Israeli town of Nir Am.

"We are inside Gaza and we will go to release them," one of the family members said, according to Israel's Channel 12. "The government did not bring them back, so we will do it ourselves."

בני משפחות חטופים עוברים את הגדר של קיבוץ נירים ורצים לעבר רצועת עזה, היום

קרדיט: מטה משפחות החטופים pic.twitter.com/o3SzxFdAtO

— הארץ חדשות (@haaretznewsvid) August 29, 2024

Israel's latest incursion in the West Bank has killed at least 17 Palestinians, the Wafa news agency said, citing medical sources.

Eight of them were killed in Jenin, five in Tulkarm and four in Tubas.

Over 30 people have been injured since Wednesday.

A total of 667 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 October.